Oceania

With almost a decade having passed since electric vehicles hit public roads, the price of battery packs has dropped 87% since 2010, according to a report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. With rising efficiency and evolving supply chains, the market research group suggests cumulative demand will bring prices down to parity with internal combustion engine vehicles by 2024.

The transformation of South Australia’s energy system has taken another step forward with early site works at a green hydrogen facility near Adelaide. The plant will integrate what is billed as Australia’s biggest electrolyzer of its kind.

Adelaide-based storage specialist 1414 Degrees has announced plans to acquire SolarReserve Australia II, which owns the Aurora Solar Energy Project in South Australia and two other PV projects in the state of New South Wales. The company wants to use the Aurora site to build a massive 400 MW solar farm with several thousand megawatt-hours of thermal storage capacity.

A new survey by the Melbourne-based Clean Energy Council shows that confidence in new clean energy investment has continued to weaken over the past six months. While a majority of Australian industry representatives expect to hire more people over the next 12 months, the biggest challenges to developing new projects remain unchanged, with the grid connection process, technical requirements, and policy uncertainty at the top of their list of concerns.

The Australian investment bank has become the latest company to sign The Climate Group’s RE100 initiative, bringing it into a growing pool of businesses that are focused on the global energy transition.

To have any hope of restricting global heating to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius, the renewables success story which saw 108 GW of solar deployed last year needs to be cranked up to the next level – and fast.

Australian startup Power Ledger wants to scale up its offerings for much larger communities, as it has already verified its technologies in projects around the world. The Australian Energy Market Commission last week proposed a similar agenda.

With the Q Cells solar business warning it is preparing an instant appeal if a U.S. ITC judge rules against it Stateside, the chemical company parent announced its solar panel business saw a year-on-year, third quarter rise in revenue from KRW818 billion to KRW1,638 billion.

The latest study published by the International Renewable Energy Agency says the average solar electricity cost of $0.085/kWh produced by projects commissioned last year is set to fall to $0.048 next year, and $0.02-0.08 by 2030.

A new application for ABB’s ‘Ability’ digital platform enables industrial customers to avoid peak charges without using of battery storage. The Swiss corporation has developed two apps for its energy management software with the help of an artificial intelligence specialist.